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Friday, 9 August 2013

Booze Tourism: Vietnam... Part 2

Bottles and cans, just clap your hands, just clap your
ha-ands…

So now I’ve covered the journey to and fromVietnam with
an emphasis on booze that you can get nearly anywhere in the world, let’s get
down to the subject of actual Vietnamese booze, starting with beer.

They do make nice lager in Vietnam. I tried a number of
varieties, including Saigon (which comes in green (4.3% ABV) and red (4.9% ABV)
varieties), Bia 333 (5.3%), Hanoi (4.2% I think) and Phong Dinh (check). It can
be quite hard to find a cold beer, and what starts as cold doesn’t stay
that way for long, but nevertheless, it’s readily available (in all kinds of
shops, restaurants, bars, hotels and on the street) and when you’re used to
Manchester prices, it’s also cheap. Prices vary between 9000 Vietnamese Dong
(that was for a bottle of Phong Dinh in Can Tho) at one end of the spectrum and
30000 VND for a 330ml can of Tiger or Heineken at the other. Really, there’s no
need to be paying ‘premium’ prices for brands you’ve heard of when you can get
a bottle of Saigon for 12000. Bear in mind, £1 was about 32000 dong.

just enough for a brew

beer is cheaper than juice

beer in Can Tho

All those zeros get confusing after a while, and you’ll find
yourself rejecting the chance to eat in a particular restaurant because Saigon
is 30000 dong, and you’re used to paying only 12000. It’s still less than a
pound.

From here on in I’m going to move to a system that my friend
Paul invented for coping with all those zeroes – replacing ‘thousand’ with
‘kilo’ and ‘million’ with ‘mega’ (Paul works in programming), so for our
purposes a pound is now 32 kilodong. Got it? Let’s move on.

It’s all bottles and cans in Vietnam. Apparently you don’t buy anything on draught because they water it down and the water’s not safe to
drink. It’s not a problem though, because the problem never came up. And
anyway, if I got a problem, a problem got a problem till it’s gone. An added
bonus is that because it’s all cheap, you can even justify drinking stuff out of
the minibar. I don’t think I’ve ever used a minibar before for anything other
than keeping my own drinks cold, but at 60p for a can of Bia 333, well, you
might as well, because when you get back to your hotel after a couple of hours
pounding the concrete in 35 degree heat, you’re ready for the refreshing rasp
of an ice cold beer.

I’ve never really thought about it before, but ice cold beer
hits the spot in hot weather in a way that other ice cold drinks can’t. Sure,
coke is fricking awesome when it’s ice cold, but there’s something about it
that doesn’t match up to a beer. What it is, is that coke (and other soft
drinks) are sweet, so once the initial refreshment has subsided, your mouth
feels all sticky and you want another drink. Beer on the other hand, is sharp
tasting, but not sweet at all. This means the liquid leaves your mouth feeling
refreshed and satisfied – with the added bonus of ‘buzz’. Though you may still
want another one. And that’s my scientific explanation for the day.

A bit of advice here (should you be in Vietnam), for if you
are offered a drink, say on a tour or something. It works like this: if they
put it in your hand, it’s free. If it is offered to you on a tray, you’ll be
asked to pay – but later. That almost rhymes. I’ll see if I can work on that. If
handed to me, then free this drink be. If offered on a tray, I should expect to
pay. There you go.

We drank a lot of beer in Vietnam – every day, except I
think, two days when we were on a cruise around Halong Bay. I’m pretty sure
beers were 60000 dong on that boat, so we weren’t having any of that. We had a
couple of cocktails in happy hour, when it was two for one, but you had to have
two of the same cocktail. Mrs Cake pointed out that this didn’t make sense
since all the cocktails were the same price, but them’s the rules, so don’t go
breaking em.

ah, sweet Glenfarclas

I think we overpriced ourselves a little on that trip,
booking one of the more expensive cruises, because when we got there we were
surrounded by lawyers and people who were clearly more affluent than us, people
who weren’t concerned to be paying a premium on their drinks. We’d be there at
dinner, drinking our free water, saying no whenever the waiter asked if we
wanted to order drinks, while they’d be buying cocktails and bottles of wine.
It made me feel a bit cheap. At least I had my Glenfarclas downstairs in the
cabin.

When it came time to embark on the cruise, I started to
think that maybe I ought to have bought a full size bottle of something in Duty
Free at Manchester, instead of the half bottle. I was having little fantasies
about turning our deck into the party deck – like it was a teen movie from the
80s. Everyone would be hanging out with us, and I’d be the centre of attention,
wearing shades even though it was night time and divvying out generous measures
of scotch. We’d all be wearing Hawaiian shirts and passing doobies
around, while a conga line weaves in and out of the cabins. At least part of
that fantasy is Teen Wolf, I think.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. It was a pretty
sedate cruise, and our neighbours were a polite family from Germany and a
really annoying, noisy family that we assumed was from the US. One of them was
a camp little lad who sang tunelessly to himself (you could hear it through the
walls), and said everything five times:

“Dad, this is wet. This is wet, Dad. Dad, this is wet. This
is wet. Dad, this is wet. Dad; it’s wet”.

The teenage daughter could be heard to be losing the cabin
keys every single time it was time
for them to leave the cabin. The mother was ok, but the dad was a bit of a dick
who wouldn’t set a good example for his kids by wearing a life jacket during
the canoeing excursion.

So no partying on deck two, then. That was ok. I find
socialising with strangers tiring, and all I wanted to do was lounge around
with the missus and a glass of the good stuff.

Yes, I am hardcore

Ok, what else should you be looking for when you go booze
touring in Vietnam? Well, they have a much wider selection of alcohols than I
expected, and it’s cheaper and more readily available than in Malaysia, which
was the last [and only other] place we [have] visited in Southeast Asia. I
remember paying the equivalent of £10 for three 330ml cans of Jaz lager there,
on the island of Tioman. You could get twenty bottles of Saigon for that
price in Vietnam.

They don’t encourage drinking in Malaysia, being that it is
largely a muslim country. That’s actually a good thing since health and safety
is pretty much non-existent – with all the holes in the pavement and rubble
around there’s a good chance you’d break your leg if you went out and got shit-faced.
Not so in Vietnam; there’s plenty of cheap booze and all you need do is make
sure you look out for mopeds. Crossing the road takes a bit of practice, but
the general rule is just keep going.

On our first full day we met our friends Paul and Victoria
in HCMC. They happened to be there at the same time as us, so it was great to
be able to meet up and go drinking.

Vietnamese vodka

They were staying in the backpacker district on Bui Vien, where
it’s all happening. Street bars overflow into the road, people go up and down selling
all kinds of crazy stuff (I was offered weed twice, sex once, my fortune and
a neck massage… this last one from a guy. Who’s this? I asked Paul as I
felt some hands on my neck – because when people do that, you just assume it’s
someone you know. I dunno, he said. Oh! It’s a guy.)

So we went out drinking, and decided to try some of the
local stuff. First up was Vietnamese vodka. It came in a surprisingly generous
measure, but as soon as I tasted it I understood why; it tasted like vodka but appeared
to be watered down. Later (at a different place) I asked if they had anything
stronger, explaining that the Vietnamese vodka appeared to be watered down. The
waiter looked puzzled and suggested Vietnamese whisky. That was satisfactory. I
don’t know which brand it was, but it was fine. At least I remember it that
way, which is to say I don’t really remember it at all. I later discovered that
the vodka would have been Hanoi vodka. It was available all over the place, and
turned out to be only 29% ABV. I wouldn’t be buying that to take home.

Vietnamese whisky

I didn’t really expect that there would be much choice in
the way of Vietnamese vodka, but at Hanoi Airport, I found I was wrong. We were
due, in a couple of days, to head to the largest island in Vietnam, Phu Quoc
and, not knowing how much booze was going to cost, or even how readily
available it would be, Mrs Cake and I figured it might be useful to take some
with us. The Glenfarclas was on its last legs by this point, and we needed
something that Mrs Cake could drink (ie: mix) anyway.

On perusing the various shops in the airport, I passed over
the Hanoi vodka, and soon found a brand by the name of Nep Moi, at 77
kilodong and 39% ABV. That’s about £2.41 for 60cl. I was reluctant really
because I was aware that asian palates can vary quite significantly from our
western ones (see Baiju), and you just never know with vodka, do you?
Especially at under £2.50. I reasoned it out though, and figured if it’s shit,
I can just pour it down the sink for that price.

So I was on the verge of buying it when Mrs Cake found
another variety, Lua Moi at 84 kilodong. At the time, that was £2.61,
and it was an impressive 45% ABV. We immediately had a winner.

I waited until the first day in our beach front bungalow on
Phu Quoc before breaking the seal on that one, and I was immediately impressed.
Yes, it’s strong, which goes in its favour, but in terms of flavour, there is
none of that bitterness that so many cheap vodkas seems to have – and that
surprised me because when I say “cheap” vodkas, I’m referring to your Red
Squares and Smirnoffs, brands that retail from £10 to £18. Lua Moi was really
cheap by comparison.

I’ll tell you something else, I’m going to say this vodka
was so good that I’m going to rank it 2nd behind Stolichnaya in the
all time vodka hierarchy, and to be fair, considering the value factor, it may
be even better than that. I can’t say without a direct comparison, and I do
love Stolichnaya, but value isn’t the most important consideration anyway. I’d
happily place a £100 bottle at number one if I liked it enough.

I relied on the Lua Moi for the entire week that we resided
on Phu Quoc. I did start to wonder, would I drink and enjoy this if I were
at home, and had all my other bottles to choose from? The answer, I
determined, is yes - probably early on Friday evenings, which is when I
normally go for the vodka if I want it neat.

Before Phu Quoc though, I unexpectedly got the chance to
explore some more unusual Vietnamese drinks, when we did a two day tour of the
Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is the main agricultural area of Vietnam where
they grow millions of tonnes of rice and fruit. It didn’t sound that
interesting in the guidebook, but yes, it’s good. You basically tootle up and
down the river in various sized boats, occasionally pausing to don one of those
comical conical hats. There’s not a lot of wildlife to see, because if it
moves, I think they eat it, but you know, they make up for it with houses on
stilts, floating markets and the like.

snake wine

The first stop was a factory, where they seem to make
everything – sweets, rice paper, snake… related… things… alcohol, and
snake-related alcohol. Our guide, Xuan, let me try their banana wine (which was
nice) as well as the snake wine. That’s the snake wine you can see there in the
big jar with snakes in it. You’ll find this stuff for sale all over Vietnam,
and when bottled, in most cases the snake will be arranged with a scorpion in
its mouth. Judging by episodes of UK Border Force and… that New Zealand
one (is it Nothing to Declare?), I’m thinking
it would probably be illegal to bring a bottle into the country, not that you’d
want to anyway, despite the fact it is supposed to increase one’s virility (no
problems there, thanks). Imagine if the bottle broke in your bag, and you had
to get the dead snake out of there… ew.

I certainly didn’t want to buy one, but I was glad to be
able to try it. I was only given a little, but I think I’d say it tasted a bit
aniseedy. It reminded me a little of Hierbas Ibicencas, but I couldn’t
give you much more detail than that. It looks like I was the only tourist
prepared to give it a go. You’re not hardcore unless you live hardcore, and yes,
I am hardcore.

They call it snake wine, but it’s more like snake spirit
really, as its alcohol content is around 45%. So it’s pretty hard with or
without the snake. Similarly, the banana wine is also more like spirit in terms
of strength. I don’t know why they call it wine.

The next part of the tour involved going to a house to
sample some different kinds of fruit, one of which was longan, a small
fruit with a large seed that they also use to make liquor. On arrival, our host
gave us each a thimble-full, which we were encouraged to neck. I thought it
tasted like grappa, and therefore enjoyed it very much. Mrs Cake wasn’t so
keen, so I got to finish hers and since I professed a liking for it, I was
offered another sample before we left.

After we’d set out on the boat again, I asked Xuan about the
longan wine, whether it was available to buy in the shops, and he said
it wasn’t; the man at the house distilled his own, but he could probably get
some for me. Another tour from the same company had been just behind us, so he
put in a call to the other guide, asking if he could pick some up, and how much
it was (150 kilodong/ £4.70).

I thought about it for a bit, and figured this was
what I was looking for; a kind of alcohol that is exotic and difficult to find.
I asked Xuan whether it was safe – having been to whisky distilleries on Islay,
and hearing that they have to discard the high and low alcohols during the
distilling process to ensure nothing dangerous gets in, I wondered whether they
took the same care with a home still in Vietnam? This could essentially be like
moonshine and make me go blind. The guy at the house obviously wasn’t blind, I
figured (unless he was like Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli) or
dead (unless he was like er… Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense), so I
rationalised that it was probably all right, and Xuan said it was safe. Even in
Vietnam his company would probably get in trouble for peddling lethal poisons
to visitors. Possibly.

longan wine

I decided to go for it, and after lunch the other guide had
caught up to us and Xuan presented me with a mineral water bottle filled with
longan wine, that didn’t look unlike urine. I opened it and gave it a sniff to
make sure. It was the real deal, so I immediately formed a plan to conduct a
comparative tasting between it and my £48 bottle of Domenis Blanc e Neri grappa
on my return home. You’ll be able to see the results of that in some future
post.

I asked Xuan if it were legal to distil your own spirits in
Vietnam, and he said it wasn’t, but it turned out he was joking.

Our friends Paul and Victoria had moved on to Laos where,
coincidentally they picked up their own bottle of exotic booze in a water
bottle. This was supposedly whisky, though you can see from the picture that it
is colourless, and therefore unaged – I think we all know what the Scotch
Whisky Association would think about that. This bottle actually has a label, and
was apparently properly sealed – unlike mine, which was clearly just a re-used
water bottle with some cling film and an elastic band over the cap to protect
against leakage.

Laotian "whisky"

I did eventually take the longan wine over to Paul’s house
for him to try, and I got to try the Laotian whisky in reciprocation. I quite
liked it, while Paul said he enjoyed the experience of trying the longan wine
rather more than the spirit itself.

So, on to Phu Quoc which was a lovely protracted period of
drinking casually and relaxing: Saigon beer for lunch and Lua Moi vodka in the
early evenings [and at bedtime] for 7 days.

There was a family run convenience store (open 18 hours a
day, 7 days a week) just up the road that sold cold beers at a fraction of the
price of our resort, and had a surprisingly eclectic mix of spirits on offer.
In fact, I was surprised at the number of shops and stalls in Vietnam that sold
beer and spirits. I suspect you don’t need a licence over there. I had been
reluctant to buy spirits from any of the shops in HCMC or Hanoi (except the
fancy liquor stores that frankly looked expensive), figuring that a country
that is so renowned for knock off culture in everything [I bought a
Vietnam football shirt in HCMC that says ‘Adidas’ on the outside, and ‘Mr JR Hung’
on the label, like it’s someone’s PE kit] is probably the same when it comes to
alcohol – is that genuine Johnnie Walker for sale on that stall, or is it
poison? I’m pretty sure some of my online research had mentioned that there are
a number of deaths caused by drinking dodgy Vietnamese booze every year, so a
policy of caution seemed to be the best bet.

Nevertheless, I was willing to give it a go once I saw our
local convenience store. It all looked perfectly above board, and since we were
there nearly every day buying beer (there was no fridge in our bungalow) and on
one occasion a second hand bottle opener, I had plenty of opportunity to scout
out its wares. It was there that I found my purchase. It’s a brand called Wall
Street, and it’s a blend of scotch whisky and Vietnamese Spirit. I’m not
sure what that means as yet, but you can be sure I’ll tell you about it once I
open it.

In terms of strength, Wall Street is only 39%, which means
the Scotch Whisky Association wouldn’t even consider it to be ‘genuine whisky’.
In its defence, nowhere on the box or bottle does it claim to be whisky anyway.
It was 225 kilodong or £7.05, so quite expensive really. In a restaurant on the
beach though, a single shot of it was 100 kilodong, so that makes the bottle at
75cl excellent value.

Since arriving home, I’ve found that there is a ‘Diageo’
label around the top of the bottle, but what that means I have no idea. There
is no mention of it among the brands on their website, and I haven’t found
anything out about it elsewhere online so far. Maybe it’s got some Caol Ila in
it? I suppose I’ll never find out for sure, but I’ll let you know what it’s
like somewhere in the fullness of time.

It was a fantastic holiday then, full of joy, adventure and
alcohol. I love Southeast Asia, and recommend it to anyone, except probably my
parents. They wouldn’t know what to do – with the heat, with the food, with the
mopeds… but I love all that. I love the sweating, the activity, the buzz, the
atmosphere. I wish I could live there. But now it’s over. I don’t mind flying
for 16 hours when you’ve got your holiday to look forward to when you arrive,
but when it’s the other way around and all you’ve got is 50 shades of grey Manchester
weather, jetlag, rain and work to look forward to… it’s hard to feel
optimistic. Still, at least I’ve got a couple of new bottles of booze to look
forward to opening, and I’ll be ordering that Japanese single malt before too
long…

Thanks once again for joining me this week. Hopefully you’ve
found it interesting and will feel like coming back sometime soon. I’m going
out now for dinner and drinks with some very good friends, but I’ll be back
next week with whatever I’ve got planned for then. Have a great weekend, and
I’ll see you later.

We read this blog and picked up some Lua Moi Vodka strickly for medicinal purposes. Loved it ice cold. Prefered the 39.9% version. Brought some home and glad we did. I does rank with the best of them imho.

We read this blog and picked up some Lua Moi Vodka strickly for medicinal purposes. Loved it ice cold. Prefered the 39.9% version. Brought some home and glad we did. I does rank with the best of them imho.

Definitions

What happens when you zone out after having had a cheeky lunchtime pint.

Alcothusiast:

Not an alcoholic, someone who appreciates booze.

Anxiety, The:

The uneasy feeling that accompanies any noteworthy hangover.

Booze Buffet Mentality:

The propensity people have to go nuts whenever there's a free bar.

Booze Porn:Photos of alcohol.

Bread Chest:Not booze related, but this term describes the indigestion you get from eating too many bread products too quickly. Just putting it out there...

Crawler's Block:The inability to decide where to go next during a pub crawl - often resulting in crawl stagnation and someone saying, "shall we just have another one here?"

Crawl Stagnation:The result of failing to plan a pub crawl sufficiently - lack of a route, theme or over-familiarity with nearby pubs can all be contributing factors.

Excess Induced Alcohol Aversion:An intolerance for a drink caused (usually) by one occasion of overindulgence.

The Family:My whisky collection.

MOMA:

Moment of Maximum Appreciation. Every bottle has one. It's the time you drink it where you enjoy it most.

Old Man Pub:Traditional British pub, renowned for being quiet, cosy and frequented by old men. Much favoured by people who like a nice chat while they drink.Psychological Drinks Cabinet:Collective term relating to the kinds of alcoholic drinks a person has need for.Road Beers:

Cans of beer that you take with you when you go out, to consume on the way.

The 3 Types of Rum:White, gold and dark. Together they form the base of many a great cocktail.

About Me

Neil Cake is interested in all types of booze, but is by no means an authority or expert. Most of the time he's just trying to be funny, but he is learning, and enjoys sharing his adventures and what he learns on the Drink it How You Like it blog.
Thengyuverrymuuuuuch.